Ryuuhei Nagatera
Asian survivor in America during the zombie apocalypse; brother of Kokoro Mizuchi and Pandora Graham, the son of Eiji Arata. Appearance Ryuuhei stands easily at 6 feet and 2 inches. He has a rather slender physique for his height with a stocky chest area and slim hips. His eyes are a very dark green and often look as though they're black or dark brown. He has a pronounced jawline with softer features and laugh lines framed by soft dark brown-black hair that naturally falls over his face and cheeks. In his left ear, he has an industrial bar, a large tapered claw earring and another earring with a feather attached to it. He also has a lip piercing in the middle of his lower lip. Along his sides and shoulders, there are several flowing but incomplete tattoos of constellations and galaxies. Most of these tattoos are along his shoulders and back, being completely covered by his shirt to give off a 'clean' look. He can often be seen wearing t-shirts and jeans that are made of softer materials, finding it easier to move around in fabrics like that. Ryuuhei used to wear things like suits and semi-formal clothing that is splashed at times with things like hoodies, jeans, sneakers and the occasional pair of converse. Technically, anything that's easy to wear. Inventory In addition to his normal inventory, Ryuuhei was driving a rental vehicle from Tennessee through to Georgia when the infection began, somewhat stranding him in America and making his limited grasp on the language even more obvious. The truck is in good condition but not excellent and has an extended cab on it for sleeping later on. Ryuuhei spends a good deal of time with this vehicle and has begin making it more of his own. Upon looking inside, one could find the following items inside: *Clothes *Several bags of dried and canned food *9mm gun with three boxes of ammo *Small, one person first aid kit *USA Road Atlas *Bedding *Personal hygiene products *Family photo album *Steel bat *Extra fuel tanks Personality In an outward appearance, Ryuuhei is talkative and friendly to the point of almost being creepy. This talkative nature hides a lot of trauma that has befallen him over the course of his life. His smile hides this as well and has helped him to talk to people, getting to know them well enough that he can feel he's made a new friend. He used to put up a front of being noble, a trait that carried over from his days living with his foster father, but has since stopped doing that in order to work on being a good person in general. In the past, there were times where he would a bit more creepy by touching people. He hadn't mean any offense while doing so, this method being the one that broke the ice between himself and several people before the infection began. This unconventional method doesn't come out much anymore. Ryuuhei has no real issues with finding ways to connect to people but he is a bit bad at keeping up with those connections anymore. Before, he always could find a strange way to connect with people, even if the connection were a minuscule one. He has kept the ability to remember faces far better than anything else, recognizing hairstyles and prominent physical traits far better than their name or the conversation that was being had on that day. Though he made a lot of friends in high school and Japan with his whore-like actions, Ryuuhei no longer relies on that to be able to speak to someone. Instead, he retained the ease of conversing verbally as well as the listening skills that he had acquired in his former job, finding that he was still rather well at extracting information from people. He was a good listener when it really mattered. Even though he was quite popular in the high school and his former country due to how easily he 'put out' with others, Ryuuhei no longer performs those actions to gain friendships. He understands that it's not the way to be able to go through his life any longer. As he has matured, he is now able to tell the difference between loving and friendly affection far better than when Kokoro taught him. Even though his skill in hand to hand was lacking while in Japan, Ryuuhei went from rarely using it to favoring it. He's rather skilled with it now and finds it to be far easier to use at short distances and is still rather adept at the art of using a sword. Ryuuhei had a lot of issues to do with his hand to hand skills in the past, mostly his inability to listen when he was being taught. While his frustration levels would become high enough that it would cause him to completely end up losing his focus, now it is difficult to break it. Recently, he was able to learn a bit more about it with help from a few other practitioners who were adept with it. While his general attitude on hand to hand has been rather neutral, he understands that there are several that have never liked it and most likely never will. Ryuuhei respects this but he doesn't mention how backward he feels that it actually is. When in battle, he used to become a bit cocky and a little more serious than he normal, but not by a lot. Ryuuhei now is very stoic and lets himself boil with a silent rage, no longer making jokes and poking at his opponent in the hopes of making them lose control. Instead, Ryuuhei allows them to let their arrogance bury them in their own grave that he has marked for them. That old, cocky nature was good at getting him into trouble but now it's very much hidden. This is where the old 'noble act' came into play and Ryuuhei would do his best, as the foster son of a military man, to not allow himself to look like a fool in a battle anymore. However, there is still a point in battle, especially against those stronger than himself, that Ryuuhei becomes very morose and hateful. He sometimes feels that his powers are completely inadequate and will push himself harder and harder with each strike so that he might survive the battle to return home to his family. Anything threatening his friends, family, or significant other he has one really gets under his skin and makes the man want to take down the opponent/target several times more than before. A trait he got from his biological father. History Ryuuhei was the son of a mother who was less than ideal, she was a drug addict as well as a rape victim of Eiji Arata. She had planned to have an abortion with him but her overly religious parents simply would not allow for it, making the girl's life a living hell. His father was at the hospital when Ryuuhei was born under the name of Renji Arata. It was then that one of Ryuuhei's mother's relatives realized what it was that was going on and took Ryuuhei out of the place, having paid the hospital to say he was stillborn. It was because of this that he was 'fostered' by his mother's uncle, Toshizo, in Hiroshima. The man and his wife, Hisana, raised Ryuuhei to respect his elders as well as his peers by the two people who adopted him. These two people were very good at their job and made it very clear to Ryuuhei that they were not his biological parents at a young age. They accomplished this by giving him a picture of his mother from when she was young, having acquired one from his birth grandmother. He still carries it in his wallet. When he was old enough, around thirteen, he was told lies about his mother's past, the real truth being kept form him to 'protect him'. By this time, Ryuuhei ended up enrolled in a sword fighting class for nearly three years, his foster father being very dead set on teaching Ryuuhei to be strong. The young man began to gain more confidence through this training and requested to be able to try out different forms, of which the foster father was able to carry out by teaching the young man himself. Ryuuhei was a good student despite his continued training. While not being very chivalrous, he still managed to stick to an honorable code of his own. Around his sixteenth birthday, his foster mother found out about her cancer and encouraged both of her boys to be strong for her. It was after that, that Ryuuhei became very protective of her, so much so that he ended up joining the Yakuza because a local boss said that he could help him. His foster father recognized what was going on with his son and encouraged him not to do it, saying that the cancer might not be that serious but Ryuuhei didn't listen. Instead, he worked as a Yakuza drug boy, taking things back and forth between the suppliers and the druggies themselves until Hisana died four months later even after receiving treatments. It was around this time that Ryuuhei's foster father and siblings became very critical of him, always dropping hints on how he should get out of the Yakuza but he could never fully manage it. He then threw himself into his studies and fighting, wanting to become stronger to show her spirit. Ryuuhei was certain that if he just ignored the Yakuza calling him at all hours of the night, that he would be alright because his mother's spirit is with him, showing him that he can still be strong. Several years passed and he ended up graduating, a remarkable feat for someone who'd nearly gotten their pinky chopped off because he had ignored the Yakuza. In the time that he was there, Ryuuhei had already done terrible things and was the 'right hand' of one of the bosses, a man by the name of Ruka Ginjou, who was very good at covering his tracks. He taught these skills to Ryuuhei, finding that he didn't want the boy to end up going to jail too soon. Of course, the man also found out through a DNA test just who Ryuuhei's father was and eagerly taunted Kokoro and Pandora with this information, knowing that if he got the family by the balls, he could control all of them. Unknown to Ryuuhei, he blissfully continued his life with noproblems. By the time he was twenty, Toshizo allowed Ryuuhei to take over the dojo. It was the same one that he'd trained in as a boy and was delighted when his foster father began bragging on him. Right then, he swore that he wouldn't let the man down, ever. He was rather surprised though, having felt that Kokoro would have been a better swordsman than he ever would have been, the other very good at what he could do. When Ryuuhei was twenty one, his father was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. The rest of the family, mostly Kokoro and Pandora, didn't believe that it was an accident no matter what the police reports said. Ryuuhei had been devastated even though he suspected from the look of his father's car that the Yakuza had something to do with it. Instead of mourning for too long, Ryuuhei went through with his father's wishes and had Toshizo's body cremated. Ryuuhei let his siblings take the urn, only asking for a small bag of his father's remains. He was able to make a ring out of them that he still wears the ring today. Reluctantly, he continued working at the dojo but it was clear that his heart wasn't completely into it. The children seemed unaffected but Ryuuhei was a good actor, he understood that in order to protect the rest of his family, he needed to get out of Japan. Without telling them the true reason, Ryuuhei moved on to start doing various worldwide demonstrations, hoping to encourage other children to strive for strength. He often needed a translator to help him with his speehes and his English steadily improved. This is not to say that he didn't lapse into Japanese when frustrated, his mother language being far easier for him to handle. While he was out in America, he wrote back to his family using an assumed name that only they would know; Hiroku Shikuga. The Yakuza went absolutely batshit over this, trying to figure out who it was that was writing to them from America. It was no surprise that they tormented Kokoro and Pandora over this, making things very difficult for them in the long run. The letters did not have return addresses for them to write back to. Instead, Ryuuhei was just happy knowing that they were at least getting news, hoping that they were getting the same kind of comfort. He was at a weapons convention in Atlanta, Georgia when the walkers began to come around. He had been following the news closely, feeling that if he gave himself away around anyone that was Japanese or of Asian descent, he would get himself into more trouble than was worth it. It was because of this that he stayed in his hotel room during the first couple of days of the initial infection spreading. Becoming brave, he loaded up his things in the hotel as well as a few things from the hotel itself in the way of a road map as well as a few extra linens and such. Skills *'Hand to hand combat;' As a side ability to his swordsmanship, Ryuuhei made sure to train heavily in different types of martial arts, this does not, by any stretch of the imagination, make him an expert in it. *'Swordsmanship;' Ryuuhei dedicated most of his life to learning the art of handling, cleaning and fighting with a sword of his country, the samurai sword. He is renowned in Hirashima and is sought out as a trainer to many, so much so that he traveled around the world to be able to teach others that were interested in the art. *'Camping;' Ryuuhei took a liking to camping after he visited Utah. Not one for hunting so much as enjoying nature and hiking, Ryuuhei learned basic camping and safety skills. He's not an expert at this either, but he can at least make a fire and boil water for drinking. 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